Filed under: Uncategorized
Angela Evans, a docent at the Denton County African American Museum and a daughter of a longtime Denton family, the Kimble’s, speaks with great pain about the “tools of beauty and torture” in one museum display cabinet.
She is referring to the hair straighteners, hot comb and hair grease, which she encountered routinely in her childhood.
“We had a standing appointment every Saturday, and it hurts me just to look at these combs,” Evans said. “I had burns on my ears, the back of my neck.”
Artifacts that represent the lives of an historical line of influential Denton County residents hang in the three small rooms of the Denton County African American Museum on Carroll Boulevard in Denton.
Angela has a low, hoarse voice and an upbeat, light pace of conversation. She was born in 1951 and has lived in Denton her whole life. She lives on Solomon’s Hill, on the south side of the railroad tracks on Prairie Road. This is southeast Denton, where the majority of the African American community in Denton lives today.
Photos of Angela’s family – primarily her Uncle Buddy (“Bu-tt-ee”) and mother – are in several photos on the walls of the museum, and most of the other photos capture familiar faces to her.
Angela laughs at the memory of old women with bleached white hair that turned blue with the over application of blue bleaching dye; one century-old bottle rests in the display case below the other hair products. The Denton County African American Museum captures history that wasn’t all that long ago, and a sense of legacy is built upon artifacts that still resonate with living residents of Denton.
The museum building is a 104-year-old house renovated and stripped of décor, and it still smells of fresh paint and gleans with newly laid laminate flooring. The base of the two smaller rooms has been installed to match the original wood floor in the den. A month after the opening of the museum, which was celebrated in mid-February, the painters are still prowling around the exterior of the museum, inspecting their work and making final touches. The landscaping is unfinished while in progress, with pipes winding around the dirt lawn.
Inside the house, display boards tell the story of the African American community in Denton, beginning with the forced move from Quakertown. Unlike traditional museums, most of the images on the walls are digital replications; there are few original photos, rather scanned or digital images a printed on the laminate boards.
Cabinets in the smaller rooms offer interactive elements to the exhibit. Photos on wooden rectangles rotate on a spring hinge, revealing a description and brief biographical information about the individuals in the photo.
As a new docent, Angela is still learning the presentation of history at the Bayless-Selby House Museum, the Victorian-era house neighboring the African American Museum house. The two-story Bayless-Selby House Museum with a front porch dwarfs the African American Museum.
The Bayless-Selby house is only twenty years older than the African American Musuem house, but their differences are striking. Chief among them is their residents. While the Bayless-Selby farmhouse was home to Anglican families who were nursery farmers and truck drivers, the smaller museum house was owned by a white general contractor and most likely rented to African Americans in town. Also, the African American Museum house has been relocated more than once, the first time without the will of the African American community.
In the early 1920s, the largest African American community in Denton existed under the name Quakertown. The community contained stores, a doctor’s office, and other private businesses catering to the community’s needs. However, its close proximity to Texas Woman’s College was frowned upon by the white Denton community, and in 1922, the community was relocated. A city park was established in its place.
Many houses, including the African American Museum, were lifted and replanted on Solomon Hill. The new park was known generically as City Park until the last few years, when it was renamed Quakertown Park.
Although she guffawed at the unlikely thought of the Bell family in a photograph at the museum being the namesake for the major Denton thoroughfare, Bell Avenue, Angela says that the old Denton black families now have a say in the community.
“They make a scene; they’re movers and shakers in a much louder way than the new Denton families,” Angela said. “When they don’t like something, the families will get together and discuss.”
The impact of the ‘old Denton families’ is active and present in today’s Denton County. Many of the families present in the photos are still the Old Denton families; such as the Fox’s, prominent television personality Debby Denman’s family and the Kimble’s.
On Solomon Hill, Angela recalls living in the neighborhood with uncles and grandparents. In her youth, her family built a new house just up the street, where Angela still lives with her mom.
Today there are black city officials and many more unofficial leaders in Denton County. Although the African American community was banished from Quakertown, its presence did not fade. The families are deeply rooted in Denton society and culture, contributing to the legacy of Denton history.
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
